The substituted 4-ethyl-piperidines prepared according to the invention and their activity as calcium channel blocking agents are disclosed in WO-A1-92/02502, WO-A1-93/15052, and Neuropharmacology, Vol. 32, No. 11, p. 1249-1257 (1993). These publications describes several methods for the preparation of the compounds, using piperidines or pyridines as starting materials. It has now been found that substituted 4-ethyl-piperidines can be prepared by a very convenient, high yielding, one pot, two step synthesis, from readily available starting materials.